Category Archives: Posts

It’s a sure thing if I am around people and the subject of my books come up. The next question will always be…when is book three coming out?

As nice as it is to know that people like the product you are putting out it are also a little aggravating not to be able to give quality answers to the fans.

One of the basic issues I am running into is time and life, just like everyone else on the planet. Work, pay bills and find time for everything else and then repeat the next day. So, as a result, to get anywhere you must prioritize and make plans and sometimes getting the next book out must take a back seat to things of higher importance.

I’ve learned I basically do a horrible job at marketing my own product, nor do I have the proper connections or time to really get it to where it needs to be. Simply getting a book into Amazon means very little anymore in the publishing world.

Other competitors closely guard there parts of the pie and although the parts they have seem small, they all add up. So my solution is to (at this time) step out of the self-published world and make my way into the larger book world. Basically, I have been shopping around, looking at regular publishers and reading contracts. I have rejected several on the basis of no real marketing platform or bad contract. Then I found a publisher who has a marketing plan, that on paper at least has a bigger footprint than what Amazon can offer. They read the manuscript for the first book and offered me one of the best contracts I have seen yet. As a result, I am holding off on book 3 until I see what they do with book one. If all go’s well they will be my new marketing platform.

So they are re-editing the first book, Age of Shadows again. I just approved the last edit, so now it’s off to formatting and graphics. There is a fairly good chance that there will be a new cover and possibly a new name. If so, those of you with the older cover’s hang on, you now have a “classic limited edition.”

If they do what they say and it does well then I will gladly have them handle Fading Starlight. Currently the third book, The Eugenics War is sitting on my desk, waiting. Part of me still wants to do it as a self-published book with my cover for a while. But part of me, the practical side says wait and let them do it. What do you, the fans think?

PS. if you want to help then please remember to add your review where ever you find it for sale online. As well as referring it to others.

The Wingate Chronicles website this week has undergone a few changes. I was not looking to make any changes this weekend, I had other plans.

But due to the fact, that the subscription/update file started to really grow quite a bit this month. I realized that I needed to move quickly to keep ahead of what was happening.

My old method was to take the submitted email address and manually input them into a separate system that I have. But due to the fact that the file was now very large, I needed a better system.

So this week I had to rebuild the main website in order to integrate a new automatic system that manages contacts for me in a professional manner. All of that worked well and I was able to import the whole email address file seamlessly into the system.

With that working so well I sent out an introductory email called, “Greetings To All The New Subscribers.“ That contained an offer to all subscribers for 50% off all books this month as a way of saying thank you.

And that’s where everything went haywire.

I started getting reports back from the new system about how many emails were opened. As well as how many bounced because people entered their own email address wrong. I was happy because most of the address were valid and people did not unsubscribe. But within a few hours, the new automatic system shut everything down…argh.

The reason was not for any of the reasons already stated above, but because of ISP spam reports. Apparently, many people’s spam filters registered the phrase, “Greeting To All The New Subscribers,“ as spam and automatically rejected it. If their spam filter works anything like the one I have at work, then I would assume most people never even got to see the email.

I was surprised to find the tolerance for reported spam bounces was less than one percent.

…Long story as short as I can make it…

If you subscribed or you are interested in receiving updates about future book releases and stuff. Then please assume that you are no longer subscribed and return to the website, wingatechronicles.com look at the website on the left-hand side and please resubscribe.

Sorry for all the confusion. And if you did subscribe, and want to take advantage of the offer I spoke about. Then look in your spam filter and find the email I sent. Because the offer is still good for this month, April 2017 only.

So after writing my first book, I kinda made it a goal that in every book after the first I was going to create a story line that made people cry. As a result, this second book has been “field tested” by a few people now. Two of them told me they had a “strong emotional response,” the third seriously cried. So it looks to me like I am well on my way to accomplishing my goal.

So here’s the deal. This video’s words are perfect for the troubles and trials of Captain John Becker in Fading StarLight. So pay close attention, like always to the words of this song. And after you get your copy and read it in a few days. Come on back to the Wingate Chronicles facebook page and let us all know what you thought of the book.

As we steadily march closer and closer to the release of the second book. I thought I would introduce to you a new character who will increasingly take a larger role within the overall story of the next three books. Her name is Jenny, and even though it will be part way through the book before you get to meet her. I hope that you will like her. Her background is dark and at times a little hidden. That’s why I have included this video. Think of the words of this song to kinda be like her “back story” of sorts.

The trials of life can be a heavy weight for us all, but no less for Captain John Becker. Since the ending of Age of Shadows, death has followed him as he has undergone many things in his life. The following music video could not be a better teaser for what’s going on in John’s mind and heart in Fading Starlight. Pay close attention to the words as it DOES CLOSELY reflect many of the aspects of John’s storyline.

Jan15th. 2017
Hello, everyone, I wanted to give some information. As I am sure many of you know, the second book should have been out a year ago. But there were many lessons to be learned between that date and today, and yes money issues did get in the way as well.

A former employer of mine that publishes its own books brought me back on into the same department I was in before. As a result of that, it gave me the opportunity to meet and talk with some people and confirm some things I have been thinking about the publishing world. That is, the book world is seeing the decline of the power of EBooks.

There was one meeting in particular with a major buyer for several chain stores who looks at several thousand book titles a month. In his opinion printed books are back and here to stay. Because, as he said “A book feels real in your hand like you got something. An Ebook is viewed by their customers as temporary, almost fake.” Around 90 to 95 percent of their sales is printed books.

That confirms to me that an author can starve to death on Ebooks sales. Because right now it feels like a mass of sharks (authors) all scrambling with increasingly lowering sales for the few dimes on the bottom of the ocean floor.

Therefore I have pulled my ebook on Amazon and will be pulling it on Apple very soon. I gave up some time ago tracking down the pirate sights who have stolen the file. They pop up faster than a “whack-a-mole” game, so I am done with them.

There a gazillion people out there who want their books for free, and will only download free books. Sorry, not playing that game. I gave away over a thousand via Amazon’s KDP program and never saw any real increase in sales after that. If anything, all it did was bottom out and stayed dead for months.

So where do we stand today?

Book two ( Fading StarLight) I believe should be out near the end of this month or around the first week or so of February. Look for updates and will list the places online that you can buy it. As well as a sneak peek that I will release soon of the first Chapter.

This next book will be around thirty pages more, and here is the write up for the back cover.

“Angered by the knowledge that their carefully laid plans for the humans of Earth are no longer secure, the Grays move to take a more hands-on, direct involvement in quickly shaping the culture and the nations of Earth. Eliminating and minimizing everything of strength that could stand in their way, they now seek to lay a new road for their plans by deceiving the minds of people everywhere.

With all sides of this conflict, even the Grays’ ancient enemies of the past. Are now racing for control of the future as the Becker family is hunted by powers they cannot ignore. Heartache and loss follow closely behind Captain John Becker and his mother, Megan, as change is forced on them. Can a dream from Eternity shape the future?”

Hello everyone, just a quick note here of what’s been going on. First of all, book one has a new cover. That was a deliberate plan so that it would match with book two. Also, I have been learning a few things about the book world and that has resulted in several changes and the slowing down of the release of book two.

More on that in a moment, but first what in book one.

New cover

Re-edited for smoother read.

Full chapter names.

Names of all the upcoming books.

New back cover

Change of publisher

For a better control, The Wingate Chronicles books will now be under a new name, Breadstone Publishing. Also, I have stepped away from dealing exclusively with Amazon under there KPD select program and have now included ITunes. See link below.

Good morning everyone, I wanted to warn you about a scam going around involving my book “Age of Shadows.”

A friend notified me of two YouTube websites offering my book for free. After a little research here is what I found. The person who is doing this is building very short videos of many books designed to direct to a website. From my research it seems this website is doing some “Data Mining.”

The website, “lilplay.com,” is owned by Double Groove and both of them seem to have a history of being scams according to what I found. Also, if you follow out the links on Double Groove they will lead you to, “Scambook.com” and scam book is also listed by many as a scam.

It would seem, according to the stories I have read, these places have taken credit card numbers from people, charged them for books and games never received. And have up loaded malware onto peoples computers.

So… if you’re looking for something free from them, then do so at your own risk.